


Cold Feet

by BookofOdym



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: "tim drake who?"- Hal Jordan 2019, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21636145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofOdym/pseuds/BookofOdym
Summary: Hal agreed to move in with Bruce, he's having second thoughts.
Relationships: Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 21
Kudos: 163





	1. Chapter 1

Hal woke up again one morning, as always, unsure for a moment as to where he was, the air of the room was cold on his skin. Too cold for him to mistake it for Coast City, but he didn't think he had been kidnapped and locked up in Modora, the bed was far too comfortable for that. When he remembered where he was, he shuddered in response.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, moving in with Bruce. At the time, he had thought that they'd been in love, but the more time that he spent in the manor, the more he was starting to believe that Bruce had just wanted there to be another parent for his children. Certainly, he had been cold with Hal since he moved in. Him disappearing at night was normal, Hal knew what he did at night, but they almost never interacted during the day either.

The kids were always around, though, and they never allowed Hal to have a moment alone. Frankly, although Hal had never been the kind of person who hated kids, he had always thought that people should have the right to say 'no, I don't want to be around children, I want to have one place I can be free of them', even though society wanted to paint such people in a bad light. He wanted to be able to leave the house in the evening, and go and see Alan, without one of them following him there and trying to eavesdrop.

At first, he had thought about calling home, telling someone that he had made a mistake. He'd even made it as far as sneaking downstairs one day a few weeks before when the sun hadn't yet risen.

"Tom!" He had exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly. He had been overjoyed to hear his friend's voice again, even if it sounded incredibly annoyed. Hal had called him late at night, so it was understandable. "Thank God, I think I fucked up. I-"

Too late, he noticed the small figure standing in the doorway. It was Drake, the most annoying of the Robins. The one who had tried to look through his cell after the last time he'd met with Alan. Hal almost dropped the landline right then and there.

"What are you doing up?" Drake said, looking suspicious, and maybe it was weird for Hal to be in the kitchen at 4 in the morning, holding a phone, and looking guilty. But Hal was an adult man, and he could do whatever he wanted.

Hal opened his mouth to say that, but paused, because suddenly he couldn't shake the idea that Bruce wouldn't see it in the same way. Hal had agreed to move into his house, Hal had been the one who had started this relationship. His sneaking around in the dead of night trying to open up a couch for himself in Coast City could only be viewed as a betrayal. Especially by someone as paranoid as Bruce.

"I'm allowed to call home," he said, covering the speaker with his hand because he didn't want to worry Tom.

Of course, the boy rolled his eyes. "This is your home now, but go on, tell me more about how Bruce matters so little to you that you don't want to be around him."

The Lantern gritted his teeth. "Listen. My life doesn't revolve around Bruce Wayne. I am a superhero, and I have at last count, a dozen aliens, a robot looking Superman, an Eastern European with sound weapons, and a metahuman with magnet powers all trying to destroy my city. I know that your family thinks the world revolves around you, but it fucking doesn't."

Drake scoffed, shaking his head, it was clear that he didn't think much of Hal's list of responsibilities. "Listen to me, Bruce is more important than you, or your little ring, ever will be. I know that you're going to hurt him, and when you do, I'll hurt you worse."

That was exactly the problem though, wasn't it, Hal didn't want to break up with Bruce yet, surely there was some way to fix what they had, and if he did break up with the man, he was sure that the Justice League would never forgive him. But he stayed with Bruce, he couldn't ask to not have to interact with the Batkids. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be a dad, but he knew that he didn't want to be a dad to them.

He didn't want to be stuck in Gotham, where Guy and John weren't allowed to enter, and where he couldn't see his friends, or his family, or Hell, even his villains.

Coast City was his home, and nothing else could ever compare.


	2. Chapter 2

Alan watched as Hal twitched and fidgeted across the table from him, sending furtive little glances toward the window every few seconds. It was, Alan thought, incredibly easy to read Hal, he was like an open book. Something had him on edge today and given some of the villains that Hal faced off against without breaking a sweat, Alan didn't want to imagine what it could be that was bothering him. He only hoped that Black Hand hadn't returned to Earth, none of them would have been able to deal with that.

It was somewhat annoying when you were trying to hold a conversation with the man, though, and Alan finally snapped after the tenth time that he looked up at Hal and caught him glancing outside. "We don't need to do this today," Alan said, plastering a smile onto his face in an attempt to mask his annoyance, "I understand that it must be difficult trying to acclimatize to a new family, especially if it's been a while since you were last in a relationship. If you're having trouble at home, we can always do this next week."

"No!" Hal pretty much shouted, much to Alan's surprise. "I mean, this- us hanging out, is pretty much the highlight of my week nowadays," Alan grunted in response, noting that that meant that it hadn't been before, "I was just... looking to make sure that no one was stalking me."

"Like Black Hand?"

"Ha!" The younger Lantern barked out a laugh, "I wish. I haven't seen him since I moved here. Or any of the others for that matter. Well... I've seen Sinestro, and most of the space guys, but no dice on the Earth ones. You know that Bruce won't let me operate in Gotham either."

That meant that there was no chance for Hal to pick up new enemies, not that he should want to, but Hal was strange and lived for excitement. Since none of his villains had followed him east either, which, admittedly, did not sound like them at all, Alan had absolutely no idea who he could be worried about. Except possibly Bruce, but even Bruce would let his boyfriend have some amount of freedom. "Who are you worried about, then?"

"You're going to think I'm an idiot if I tell you," Hal laughed again, but you could hear no small amount of pain in his voice, Alan wanted to tell him that he wasn't an idiot and that he would always trust what Hal told him. Before he could, though, Hal breathed out. "Bruce's kids are crazy. They don't trust me at all. Every time I try to leave the house at night one of them tails me."

"Hm," Alan replied, he was locked deep in thought, staring off to the side, it wasn't that he didn't believe Hal. In fact, given everything that he had learned about the Bats over the course of the last decade, this new complaint didn't even come as a surprise. He just didn't know what he could suggest, simple platitudes weren't exactly going to help his successor.

Except Hal didn't read his silence in that way, he sighed when Alan didn't say anything else, rubbing at his left eye. "See, I knew that you weren't going to believe me," he sounded tired, and Alan felt his chest tighten in response.

Reaching out, he gave Hal's hand, the one that was still resting on the table, a comforting squeeze. "I do believe you. I just think that you're going to need to have a conversation with Bruce about all of this. Preferably in private."

The younger man scoffed. "Yeah, that's gonna go down well."

"I wasn't finished yet. Don't interrupt. You could ask John to give you a longer mission, away from Earth. It would give you some time away from them."

* * *

Hal stepped out into the cold night air, a smile quirking on his lips for what felt like the first time in days. He hadn't been lying when he'd said that meeting up with Alan was the highlight of his week, the original Lantern was incredibly important to him, being something of a mentor figure to Hal, and was incredibly glad that the man lived in Gotham.

Once he had gotten a few steps from the entrance, though, his ears picked up the sound of something dropping down behind him. Hal didn't stop, in fact, he picked up his pace. He already knew what it was, and he didn't need to stop to confirm his suspicions.

That was something of a mistake because moments later, he was roughly shoved against a car. His back slammed against the metal, and he barely stifled a cry of pain.

Nightwing was glaring up at him because even when he manhandled Hal, he still couldn't manage to tower over him. "Why did you come here?" He growled.

Jesus fucking Christ, Hal thought, this was insane, right? They couldn't do this.

Except no one really cared about him in the League, and if he mentioned this to anyone, they would laugh at him. Alan had only believed him because he was Alan.

"Are you cheating on Bruce?" Nightwing asked, narrowing his eyes when Hal didn't respond to his question. "With the old man?"

The Lantern's eyes slid shut, and he considered activating his ring, just floating up into space, but that would only seem to prove whatever insane theory Nightwing had. "Why the Hell do you think that?" He asked. "Am I not allowed to talk to my friends now?"

"You were smiling." The amount of hate behind those three words was shocking. "It's been ages since I last saw you smile at Bruce like that."


	3. Chapter 3

It was, all in all, unsurprising when Sonar showed up in Gotham City, Hal hadn't been paying him the attention that he deserved. Before this year, he would have probably said that Sonar didn't warrant that much attention, but given that the man had spotted him in the street (without his costume) and had immediately latched onto his leg, maybe this time he deserved it.

At the very least, it was something to do, a reenactment of the battles that they had had back when Hal had true freedom. Not that it had lasted long, Bruce had shown up to 'rescue' him, like he hadn't been dealing with Sonar's shit for the last fifteen or so years. At the time, his main concern had been being pissed off at Batman, but afterward, he started to worry that Bito would figure out that fighting rodent themed heroes would get you famous quicker than fighting Green Lantern.

Bruce had barely said a word to him before he pushed the criminal into the Batmobile. But Hal didn't expect anything else, he was used to it by now, they had to keep secret identities safe, too much overt affection when one of them was in costume and the other wasn't would put Bruce's entire family at risk, yadda yadda.

At home, though, things were a different story. Hal had stayed in the Batcave, keeping his knees hugged close to his chest. Alfred had come down to offer him tea, and he had accepted, but he didn't want to head upstairs and risk an encounter with one of the kids. Alan had sent him a few texts since their last meeting, but the fact that Grayson kept parroting them back at him and asking what they meant made Hal not really want to reply.

It was after a few hours sat like that that he finally heard the sound of the Batmobile speeding back into the cave.

"You're in my chair," Bruce said shortly, tugging his mask off of his head, he looked so hot with helmet hair, Hal just wanted to run his fingers through it.

Instead, he pulled the man down into a deep kiss, Bruce looked tired, and Hal kind of just wanted to pull him down underneath some bed covers and curl up together until the next morning. "It's not like I have anywhere else to sit while I'm waiting for you," he smirked when they finally pulled apart.

Bruce furrowed his eyebrows at him. "I heard that Dick was planning on running a movie tonight, although he's lucky that the city was basically empty tonight. You could have spent the evening with them."

Arguably, that was the perfect moment to bring up the issues with him, except Hal felt a bubble of panic rise in his chest. He knew that in a situation like this, Bruce would never take his side, he was protective of his kids and would take someone having a problem with them incredibly personally. He forced a smile onto his face, ignoring that portion of Bruce's statement. "Empty, you mean, except for my only s-rank villain."

"You... rank your villains?" Bruce looked confused like the very concept was entirely alien to him. "In... what way are you ranking them that results in Sonar being at the top?"

"The 's' in s-rank villain stands for Sonar."

"Alphabetical then?" A hand scooched him over, and Bruce slid onto the chair next to him. "Doesn't Sinestro also start with an S?" He asked, shooting Hal what looked like a concerned look like he thought he had hit his head or had a fever or something. But, apparently, he was used to Hal's strangeness, because he had soon pressed a kiss on the top of Hal's head.

* * *

Hal hadn't really been expecting what happened next, but on the day that he needed to go to the bank, he suddenly found that he couldn't sign his own name. He kept accidentally writing Green Lantern. He sighed, you would wait months for one of your rogues to contact you, then they would all come along at once.

He pulled out his phone, making sure to call Bruce before he did anything. "Hey, honey," he said by way of greeting, Hal knew that Bruce was at work, and he hoped that he wasn't pulling the other man out of a meeting.

Who was he kidding? After last night, Bruce would probably blow off the entire board of directors and some potential business partners in order to keep him from getting into trouble.

"What's wrong?" Bruce asked curtly, cutting off any attempt at small talk.

"Nothing's wrong," Hal replied, "I just got a call from the Guardians-" fuck, he was already screwing up, "I mean John. I'll be gone for a few days. It's an emergency."

That wasn't necessarily true, but Hal knew that if he told Bruce the truth, that Doctor Polaris was trying to contact him mentally, he would demand to come along, or worse, insist that Hal take one of the boys. But Neal Emerson was mentally ill, Hal was well versed in dealing with him, and he knew that the last thing the man needed was to be kicked in the face by a twink in spandex.

"You could have left a note at home," Bruce sighed, "don't talk about this on an unsecured line, Jordan. But fine, at least try to come back safely this time."

Hal agreed, and started flying towards the Arctic Circle, Neal would sometimes go to the North Pole, he was the world expert in magnetism and sometimes traveled there for research. The fact that it was the one place on Earth that his superpowered evil side was most powerful meant that if he was contacting Hal, things couldn't be good.

"Alright, Neal," Hal glanced around as he landed, he got the distinct sense something was wrong, "let's get you out of that hole, so we can get you home."

A figure stepped out of the shadows, one that he hadn't expected. Paul Booker, or Major Disaster, was another of his rogues, one who Hal had thought to be wholly reformed. The man was working with the Justice League now. Hal had just started to trust him, and if this was a criminal team-up.

"Funny," Booker said, examining him impassively, "that's pretty much exactly what we were going to say to you."


End file.
